Romney inches up, takes lead in ABC/WaPo tracking poll

posted at 8:04 pm on October 23, 2012 by Allahpundit

It’s a two-point gain, flipping a 49/48 lead for O into one for Romney, which isn’t statistically significant. It also doesn’t include reaction to the debate. That’ll start being priced in tomorrow. So why post it? Two reasons. First, it’s been maybe half an hour since we’ve had any poll news on the site and, well, that just won’t do. Second, certain excitable, Obama-worshipping “conservative” pundits are starting to turn desperate at their hero’s predicament, so a poll showing Romney ahead is worth plenty in schadenfreude points.

Plus, there’s a little news too:

But there are fledgling signs of a fresh advantage for the challenger. Asked whom they trust on the economy, 50 percent of likely voters say Romney while 45 percent side with the president. That’s the first time this fall that either candidate has had even an apparent edge on the clear No. 1 issue on voters’ minds. Political independents break for Romney by a 12-percentage-point margin on the subject, a high for the campaign.

Note this as a possible bellwether for other polls this week. One of the Romney victory scenarios involves casual voters finally starting to concentrate on the election in the last few days, gravitating naturally towards the state of the economy, and settling on Romney as a “change” candidate. That couldn’t have happened if he hadn’t passed the test of presidential viability at the debates, but he did, with flying colors in Denver. So maybe ABC’s picking up the first traces of a late, economy-fueled break for the Republican here. And maybe Rasmussen’s swing-state tracker is picking it up too:

In the 11 swing states, Mitt Romney earns 50% of the vote to Obama’s 45%. Two percent (2%) like another candidate in the race, and four percent (4%) are undecided.

This is now the third time Romney has hit the 50% mark in the combined swing states in the past four days and is the biggest lead either candidate has held in nearly three weeks. This survey is conducted on a rolling seven-day basis, and as a result, virtually all of the interviews for today’s update were completed before the end of last night’s presidential debate.

Over at the Corner, Michael Knox Beran flagged a bit from an AP story claiming that the Obama campaign is preparing a Plan B route to the presidency just in case they lose Ohio. That’s fantastic news for Mitt, as Ohio’s almost a must-win for him, and O’s Plan B is complicated: Assuming that he has 201 EVs in the bank now, he’d need to win Nevada, Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and either Virginia or Colorado to pull it off. Problem is, he’s leading in each of those first six states right now in the RCP average and he’s effectively tied in Virginia and Colorado (Romney leads by two-tenths of a point in the latter state). In fact, I should probably amend yesterday’s post identifying OH, NH, IA, and NV as the four must-watch states. Wisconsin is actually slightly closer than Nevada in the RCP average, and since we had a huge victory there over the summer and have a native son on the ticket, that’s really more deserving of “decisive toss-up” status than Nevada is. (There are more EVs in Wisconsin, too.) The last time Romney led a poll in Wisconsin was mid-August, though, when he led two, but the last two polls taken this week have him within two points. I assume Paul Ryan will spend the bulk of his time there over the next two weeks while Romney shuttles between Ohio, Florida, Ohio, Virginia, and Ohio.

Here’s the Onion paying tribute to the casual voters who’ll decide America’s fate for the next four years. Exit question: Second look at Maine’s Second District?

Update: A good catch by ConArtCritic and Ace: Right now, Gallup’s tracker has the partisan ID split among likely voters at … D+0.2. That’s why they’re persistently showing a 5-6 point lead for Romney right now. If that’s how it ends up on election day, a la 2004, then you won’t need to worry about counting electoral votes. Romney wins handily.

Breaking on Hot Air

Blowback

Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.

Trackbacks/Pings

Comments

Gloria Allred is looking to get court documents related to a nasty divorce unsealed. Apparently, Romney had to testify or made a statement to the court. He must have known the husband in some capacity. My guess is Allred will trot out her client who will say that she was beaten up by her husband and Romney’s testimony in court prevented her husband from being locked up.

Wigglesworth on October 23, 2012 at 9:30 PM

All we have is speculation for now, but I think this shows that the Obama campaign is scraping the bottom of the barrel now. Their desperation is palpable.

Says the idiot who thinks the bailout of GM helps Obama in Ohio when less than one third of the auto industry jobs in Ohio are the result of Government Motors and the other two thirds are because of Honda and Ford.

Gloria Allred is looking to get court documents related to a nasty divorce unsealed. Apparently, Romney had to testify or made a statement to the court. He must have known the husband in some capacity. My guess is Allred will trot out her client who will say that she was beaten up by her husband and Romney’s testimony in court prevented her husband from being locked up.

Wigglesworth on October 23, 2012 at 9:30 PM

Allred is really grasping here. I hope the judge tells her to pound sand.

“Gloria Allred is looking to get court documents related to a nasty divorce unsealed. Apparently, Romney had to testify or made a statement to the court. He must have known the husband in some capacity. My guess is Allred will trot out her client who will say that she was beaten up by her husband and Romney’s testimony in court prevented her husband from being locked up.

Wigglesworth on October 23, 2012 at 9:30 PM

Allred is really grasping here. I hope the judge tells her to pound sand.

gophergirl on October 23, 2012 at 9:35 PM”

The judge is a Patrick appointee, so don’t be surprised by the outcome.

that she manages to trumpet for the interest of a Fluke-sized crowd. At this point, I’m actually more worried about Trump’s surprise hurting Mitt…

Gingotts on October 23, 2012 at 9:11 PM

Yeah, He’s a wild card, crazy and unpredictable… What is he trying to achieve anyways…who the heck cares if 0 and his Moocholina were close to a divorce, as long as they didn’t, in the end…what’s the biggie….bottom line we don’t need this crapola…but try to reason with that knucklehead, am sure the Romney campaign tried to dissuade him from gpingpublic with whatever it is….what I don’t get it, if it’s all about the ratings for his stupid show, why couldn’t he just wait a few more weeks…anyways, I hope his and allred’s ‘revelations’ will cancell each other out with their equal imbecility…

First, I’m not sure how much of a national trend there really is. Romney leads by under one point and that lead could be gone in a day with tightening in Gallup (which is happening now) and Rasmussen.

gumbyandpokey on October 23, 2012 at 9:24 PM

Tightening? Rasmussen is MOVING in the direction of Gallup. Ras: R +4 nationally, +5 in the swing states. Gallup: R +5 (he’s been leading or tied for the last 19 days and over 50 for more than a week. I remind you again, SINCE 1936, NOT ONE SINGLE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE THAT HAS BEEN OVER 50% IN THE LIKELY VOTER GALLUP POLL AND LOST THE NOVEMBER ELECTION. ZIP. ZILCH. NADA.

Two years ago, Obama was at 50 and was +5. You continue to downplay R’s numbers while ignoring the fact that O is stuck somewhere between 45 and 47 percent.

Also, the trend is not limited to Gallup and Rasmussen. It can be seen in your “gold standard,” IBD/Tipp, ABC/WaPo, USA Today, PPP, Gravis, Politico/GWU/Battleground, NBC/WSJ, Pew, and Suffolk.

And I still think Ohio is locked for Obama, which guarantees his re-election. If it hasn’t moved by now, it’s not going to move suddenly in the last two weeks.

Oh, but it has moved. Before the first debate, Obama had a 5-6 point lead. According to RCP, which includes some of those “outliers” that you speak about that contain bogus data (ie, they count absentee ballot requests as actual votes), Obama has a +1.9 lead. Statistically, it’s tied.

Says the idiot who thinks the bailout of GM helps Obama in Ohio when less than one third of the auto industry jobs in Ohio are the result of Government Motors and the other two thirds are because of Honda and Ford.

Hahahahahahahahaha

MobileVideoEngineer on October 23, 2012 at 9:33 PM

Yeah, the people in towns like Dayton / Moraine and Mansfield, have certainly been helped by the GM bailout.

Agreed. Whatever Trump has or thinks he has, he’s in danger of committing the worst possible cardinal sin in regard to a political campaign: disrupting a favorable news cycle.

Even Allred at least has an excuse in that the Obama campaign has nothing going for it and is desperate enough for a game-changer to wallow in the slime (not that doing so requires much for either of them). Romney doesn’t want and doesn’t need this.

Also, the trend is not limited to Gallup and Rasmussen. It can be seen in your “gold standard,”

Resist We Much on October 23, 2012 at 9:39 PM

Speaking of which, it’s funny how for some 80-90 years Gallup was the “gold standard” in polling. Then in 2012 they dared to do as they’ve always done, and reported the truth about a sitting President’s approval rating and re-election chances. Now they’re supposedly a right-wing outfit who needed a talking to from Axelrod. Crazy extremists and their D+1 sample….

Gold standard meets golden boy. We’ll see who’s still around in a couple of weeks.

Gloria Allred is looking to get court documents related to a nasty divorce unsealed.

peeps:
over at legal insurrection they are saying it’s one of the Romnesia Mormon feminazis who had 4 kids and a problem pregnancy that she wanted to abort but Mitt in his role as Mormon minister counseled her against it. 30 or so years ago! She had the abortion and left the church. I couldn’t figure out why a case like that would end up in family court in MA…maybe she had a bad husband on top of it and Mitt knew the family and was brought into court for teh divorce poceedings to throw in his 2 cents. records are sealed…don’t they have to have a good reason to open the records other than Allred saying they should like it’s an emergency?

Team Obama’s chief strategist stammered out a contradictory and evasive defense of the White House’s role in the Delphi bankruptcy settlement, which has left up to 20,000 older workers in Ohio with reduced or minimal pensions.

The 2009 bankruptcy of the auto-parts maker “was not the decision of the president,” David Axelrod first told reporters during an Oct. 23 midday press conference, after he was asked about a Delphi-related rally that Gov. Mitt Romney held in Ohio.

“This was a consequence of steps that were taken by the company [Delphi] itself to rationalize, so it could exist,” he insisted.

But Axelrod next seemed to admit that President Barack Obama played a role in the lopsided deal, which drained the retirement accounts of non-union workers while boosting the pension of workers in unions allied to the Democratic Party.

“Obviously we’re concerned about the workers there, but the policy that the president undertook was one that was designed to save the larger, you know, universe of people relying on the auto industry,” he claimed.

…snip…

Emails obtained by The Daily Caller in August showed that the Treasury Department, led by Secretary Timothy Geithner, pushed for the cutoff of the non-union Delphi pensions, even as Treasury publicly said that the independent Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation made the decision.

The deal also boosted investors in Wall Street.

Axelrod next tried to delegitimize Romney’s continued criticism of the settlement during his campaign tours through the critical battleground state of Ohio.

The Delphi issue is important, because Obama’s campaign in Ohio consists of claiming credit for the auto-industry bailout. The Delphi deal damages Obama’s claim, because it took expected retirement funds from many older and vulnerable workers in Ohio neighborhoods.

peeps:
over at legal insurrection they are saying it’s one of the Romnesia Mormon feminazis who had 4 kids and a problem pregnancy that she wanted to abort but Mitt in his role as Mormon minister counseled her against it. 30 or so years ago! She had the abortion and left the church. I couldn’t figure out why a case like that would end up in family court in MA…maybe she had a bad husband on top of it and Mitt knew the family and was brought into court for teh divorce poceedings to throw in his 2 cents. records are sealed…don’t they have to have a good reason to open the records other than Allred saying they should like it’s an emergency?

gracie on October 23, 2012 at 9:54 PM

If there is any truth to it, I’ll bet that Mitt offered to pay her medical bills and to give her a job. He strikes me as that kind of guy.

So what’s the deal with the Donald? Do we know what he thinks he has? I heard Hannity say something about it yesterday, but never heard what it was. Anyone know?

BettyRuth on October 23, 2012 at 9:42 PM

I read somewhere (Ace maybe?) that Trump has a couple of guys who were involved in helping cover up a sexual harassment charge against Zero while he was at Harvard. Now…was the accuser…a…lady…or…a…fella?

And have read somewhere that Allred’s hit is about the divorce of Romney’s former business partner. Romney, reportedly, testified on behalf of the husband. Maybe the ex-wife is Allred’s “client”?

I can’t recall a single recent poll of OH where Romney has lead by more than one point.

It’s a weak state for him.

gumbyandpokey on October 23, 2012 at 9:30 PM

It looks weak for him when they use a D+9 sample. One recent poll had only 55% white voters – and the actual number is more like 80%. It appears that great efforts are being taken amongst some pollsters to keep Obama in the lead in Ohio. Romney will win Ohio – and the election.

peeps:
over at legal insurrection they are saying it’s one of the Romnesia Mormon feminazis who had 4 kids and a problem pregnancy that she wanted to abort but Mitt in his role as Mormon minister counseled her against it. 30 or so years ago! She had the abortion and left the church. I couldn’t figure out why a case like that would end up in family court in MA…maybe she had a bad husband on top of it and Mitt knew the family and was brought into court for teh divorce poceedings to throw in his 2 cents. records are sealed…don’t they have to have a good reason to open the records other than Allred saying they should like it’s an emergency?

What a sad opinion you have of Americans. I do not share your opinion, if the terrorist attack in Libya did not matter to Americans it would have gone down the rabbit hole weeks ago. It continues to get bigger. Maybe you do not care, do not lump the rest of us in with your apathy of 4 dead Americans murdered by terrorists!

Right now, Gallup’s tracker has the partisan ID split among likely voters at … D+0.2. That’s why they’re persistently showing a 5-6 point lead for Romney right now.

I’m a bit puzzled by the numbers. Scott Rasmussen was on Hewitt this afternoon. He said he expected turnout to be D +2 or 3. (I have heard him say this about Ohio, but not about he national turnout.) He also said that 04 was D+0. I’m assuming, but haven’t checked, that his poll showing Romney at 50 to be then a D +2 or 3 sample. A difference of almost two points in the sample only gets a 1 pt difference between the Gallup and Rasmussen results. Rasmussen admits that it will take a least through tomorrow to find out if the 50 number is just “noise” or actually shows something.

But I wonder if D+2 and D+0 both get Romney to 50 whether that is something meaningful or just another of the many weird things about polls.

Ras uses a 3 day rolling average, while Gallup uses 7, so it could be that Ras is quicker to pick up on trends. That said, the differences in this case are in the margin of statistical noise, really, if Ras is indeed using a D+2 to Gallup’s D+0.2. Both samples are at least somewhat reasonable. I’d consider D+2 or 3 among the high end for Democrats. It could range back as much as R+1, in my opinion.

Romney getting to 50 or 51 is significant in that candidates who have gotten there this late in the game have gone on to win in every election since 1936 (as far as Gallup, Rasmussen doesn’t go back that far.)

Christopher Stevens and three other Americans are dead you piece of sh!t and American’s do care

Obama lied, people died, azzhat.

JPeterman on October 23, 2012 at 10:56 PM

That son of a b1tch left those men to die, he went to bed….. to BED when they didn’t know where the ambassador was… when two of the med were suffocating in a burning building… when the ambassador was being beaten and TORTURED to death by Al Qaeda after the child-King declared he personally had neutered the terror group.

I know my fellow Americans damn well do care…

They have buried family in the war on terror, the American Samurai class… Working, blue collar families, where honor and duty mean every able bodied male serves at least one hitch, before moving into the work force.. brothers, sisters.. aunts, uncles.. mom’s and dad’s… my wife’s family is such… as is mine..

The American working class fights this nations wars.. while it’s elitist college ivy league graduates, duck and hide…

But they’ll damn well wag their fingers at us, telling us what to think.. as our blood is spilled.. as ours spill their blood..

Don’t you dare, condescend to tell us… Americans don’t care….

liberals do not care..

an entirely parasitic subclass.. wealthy largely.. ivy league.. and so arrogant, they even hold the conceit, they’re “normal” middle class.. They aren’t.. they’re the ranks of social workers, government employees.. the lobby groups.. they know the plight of normal American’s..

Like a Coyote knows the plight of the sheep he preys on..

They do not live among us.. they make vastly more than we do.. they never serve like we do.. never in the ranks of cops and firefighters.. nothing that risks their all important pink skins..

Americans do CARE when ours die putz.. especially, when they are left to die, by an incompetent as* who cared more for his beauty rest, than his JOB.. or the lives he threw away, because he was frozen in inaction.

The blue collar working class holds liberals in complete contempt..and now.. Obama can damn well join those ranks of the cowardly and the damned..